…employs South Americans, Romanians as receptionists, security guards, cleaners, gardeners
. Allegedly paying foreigners triple of wages earned by sacked Nigerians
. Courts diplomatic row with Spain
Atmosphere at the Nigerian Embassy in Madrid, Spain, has remained tense since last week when workers sacked by the Ambassador, Mr Ademola Seriki, embarked on protests on the streets of Madrid, the country’s capital, over their plight.
It was learnt that only three out of the 11 Nigerian Embassy staff sacked by the Ambassador have so far been paid only part of their entitlements since February, when they were disengaged. The remaining nine have yet to be paid a dime, it was learnt.
Ambassador Seriki, it was gathered, had early this year proposed to the Nigerian staff of the Embassy a change of their job contracts from permanent to temporary, a proposal said to have contradicted the Labour laws in Spain.
The Nigerian staff were also said to have explained to Seriki that his proposal would jeopardise their social security contributions, which they had been making for the number of years they had been in the service of the Embassy in Spain.
But Ambassador Seriki was said to have rejected the workers’ pleas and went ahead to order the termination of their permanent employment status.
Already, the matter has resulted in a legal tussle with the aggrieved workers dragging the Ambassador Seriki before a Spanish High Court in Madrid. The Ambassador is however being represented in court by a lawyer, because of the diplomatic immunity he enjoys.
No fewer than 11 different suits have been instituted at the Spanish High Court by the aggrieved Nigerian Embassy workers against the Ambassador.
This development, it was further learnt, is now causing some discomfort for the Nigerian Diplomatic Mission in the country as the Envoy, Ambassador Seriki is alleged to have continued to violate Spain’s labour laws.
This development, our correspondent further gathered, may eventually lead to a diplomatic row between the Nigerian and Spanish governments, if not urgently resolved.
While terminating the appointments of the Nigerian staff in January this year, the Embassy in a notice signed on behalf of the Ambassador by the Minister Head of Chancery, Mrs B. U Danladi, had cited the need to reduce the financial burden on the Embassy as a major reason.
A copy of the notice of termination of appointment issued to the workers but obtained from a source in Abuja, stated, “Following the ongoing reforms and reorganisation of the Embassy, it has become paramount to reduce the number of Locally Recruited Staff to ease the financial burden on the Embassy’s finances. Therefore, I am directed to issue you a notice of termination of appointment with effect from 24th January 2022 to 7th February 2022, being a statutory requirement for termination of appointments to issue fifteen (15) days notice.”
But it was reliably gathered that the Embassy had since employed many foreigners, who are even being paid higher wages, to replace the sacked Nigerian workers, while it has yet to pay all the disengaged staff their entitlements.
First News had reported last week a protest by the sacked workers and other sympathetic Nigerians. They had staged a protest in front of the High Court in the Spanish capital, Madrid, against the alleged excesses of Ambassador Seriki, demanding his immediate recall by the Nigerian Government.
The sacked Embassy staff, who had carried placards with various inscriptions and chanted protest songs, said they decided to take their grievances to the premises of the Madrid High Court, where a case of falsification of their documents had been brought before the Magistrate against the Nigerian Ambassador, to let the entire world know of the ordeals Seriki had allegedly been putting them and their innocent family members through, since his resumption as the envoy.
They had accused Ambassador Seriki of effecting a sudden change and violation of the Embassy’s protocol by reducing their salaries, forging their documents and sacking Nigerian staff, who had worked for several years with the Mission and replacing them with foreigners.
Our correspondent gathered on Monday that the fear of further action by the sacked workers had continued to create tension among the remaining workers, particularly the newly employed foreign staff of the Nigerian Embassy in Madrid, Spain.
It was gathered that the the Ambassador had already replaced the 11 sacked Nigerian staff with foreigners from South America and Romania, who are allegedly being paid salaries three times higher than the retrenched Nigerians per hour.
Some of the foreign staff newly engaged by the Nigerian Embassy in Spain, First News, learnt include a receptionist, cleaners, gardeners and others, who are citizens of the above-listed countries.
